


Some Childish Spark Still Alive

by asexualizing (Specialcookies)



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Fluff and Angst, Homophobia, Humor, M/M, Mentions of Character Death, Soul Mates AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-30
Updated: 2014-12-30
Packaged: 2018-03-04 10:15:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3064115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Specialcookies/pseuds/asexualizing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“Don’t talk,” he says as he reaches the counter and Kieren opens his mouth to tell him good morning. “If I meet mine in a coffee shop, I don’t want to know.”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Kieren shuts his mouth at his rudeness. How the hell is he supposed to service him like that? This bloke deserves to meet his Soul Mate in a coffee shop to be honest.<em></em></em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <em>Kieren is a barista, Simon is an idiot who arranges poetry nights, Amy is a miracle, and everybody knows absolutely nothing about how soul mates work.</em>
  </em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some Childish Spark Still Alive

**Author's Note:**

> so, there was [this](http://danydehaan.tumblr.com/post/95953813852/tumblr-really-likes-that-soulmates-first-word) tumblr post, and then...this fic just kind of happened. I just wanted to write something short and fun inbetween long fics. as always, a thank you to [lee](http://trumpsofdoom.tumblr.com) who read and commented during the writing of it and made me feel like it wasn't completely pointless, and to my pickle for listening to me talk about my fics! <3
> 
> the name of the fic is taken from the song When I Go by Slow Club.

“Sorry, it’s not me,” Kieren says with a grimace to the third person this shift that comes with an expectation for him to be their Soul Mate. The response is usually a sigh and a shrug, their coffee order and their name, and one last look of disappointment over their shoulders, though sometimes there’s a shouting fit to be cleared off by his manager.

It’s mostly fine by him, you know. That’s the way the universe rolls, and they don’t know that _his_ Soul Mate’s words are burned into his skin as a scar forever, and that every time something like this happens his fingers play with the hem of his sleeve to cover them better. And they don’t need to know this. He doesn’t want to ruin the mood. The fact he lost his doesn’t mean other people should not be finding theirs, after all. He just wishes he didn’t have a constant reminder of Rick being a complete goof, that’ll be easier to deal with.

“No, sorry, not me.”

It’s bloody ten AM. This is going to be a long day.

*

He doesn’t know exactly how it works. Nobody does. Some people are willing to go into a relationship with the person who says the wrong words just to see what happens, but Kieren doesn’t know anybody like that, and he refrains from reading the section of the newspaper that talks about relationships and the chances to change your fate. He’d come to accept that he had what he had, and he gets no more of that particular thing, a long time ago, and it’s mostly fine, as he said.

It’s just that sometimes he thinks people should know he’s off the list when they walk into his work place, instead of having to disappoint them all over again, seeing that person’s face fall like they’ve just been told their grandmother is sick. It’s been years now and the words are no longer bright on his wrist and it’s mostly fine but on some occasions, he can just use not being fronted with it.

*

The first person to come into the place today is wearing a huge parka and a heavy jumper underneath it, both fit the weather that Kieren needed to suffer going out of bed this morning. He’s approaching the counter with heavy steps and blowing air on his palms, trying to warm them up. “Don’t talk,” he says as he reaches the counter and Kieren opens his mouth to tell him good morning. “If I meet mine in a coffee shop, I don’t want to know.”

Kieren shuts his mouth at his rudeness. How the hell is he supposed to service him like that? This bloke deserves to meet his Soul Mate in a coffee shop to be honest.

The guy considers the menu, and while he does, Kieren bites his lower lip, considers him. He’s tall, paler even than Kieren, and with a light brogue that sounds like it’d been worried with spending time abroad. He has an air of superiority complex to him, and black short hair. He seems like the kind of guy to work some respectable office job, but is actually dressed like the opposite of it. So Kieren waits, and waits, and doesn’t talk at all, until he had enough with it. “That’s not mine,” he finally says, and then: “Now what can I get you?”

Maybe he’s impatient and if his manager would have heard that he would have given Kieren a serious talk about being polite to all costumers whoever they might be and whatever they might want, but the other guy started it, anyway. 

_God_ , what is he, five? 

And then the guy doesn’t order a thing, but shifts his eyes from the menu to Kieren, and they widen, and his eyebrows are raised, and his stoic face actually has an expression of curiosity on it now. “Are you sure?” he asks.

“Yeah. What? Positive.” Kieren answers, surprised and taken aback.

“Because – No, never mind. I’ll have a flat white.”

And that is definitely going to be the weirdest shift Kieren ever had.

*

The guy doesn’t leave. He hangs around the place like he’s either waiting for someone, or has no other place to go to. He’s sitting by the window, with both his hands around his cup, and when he’s not looking outside, he’s looking at Kieren with crossed eyebrows, like he’s still trying to figure it out. Kieren wants to tell him that, look, I’m sure you’re rude to tons of baristas every morning. Kieren wants to tell him that, look, I’m sure _somebody’s_ ‘That’s not mine’ is yours. Kieren wants to tell him, look, it’s definitely not me, so you can stop trying to burn a hole through the only worker in the place because other people might want to have coffee as well, and show him his scars, and finish it all off.

But that doesn’t happen, none of it, because Kieren can only go from behind the counter to get orders to customers, and not for any reason he pleases to. Being exceptionally nasty to someone is definitely not even on the ‘Maybe, if there’s a fire’ list.

So the guy just sits there, and it goes on as other people come in, and the regular routine continues.

*

That is, until Amy comes in.

Amy is a regular, but you don’t see her every day. She’s recovering slowly from a cancer that should have killed her, but as she told Kieren, “Miracles happen to miraculous people. I am, for example, yours.”

She likes flowers and colours and colourful flowers, from what Kieren had gatherd, and he wishes her visits were more set in stone so he could prepare something to give her when she comes (he did, once. A painting of pink roses on paper he saved folded in his pocket until she came. But he wants to give her something better than that. Amy didn’t thought it’s nothing, though, Amy thought it was the most moregeous, which means more-than-gorgeous, thing someone had ever given her. So maybe it wasn’t that bad). She’s the kind of person to make you feel so alive it hurts from smiling and laughing, and Kieren owes her for making him feel like something was possible in this world. When he just started working here he didn’t know her, of course, but she immediately acted like she knew him. “I’ve seen you around Roarton, you goober,” she had told him, “You looked all pouty and gloomy, but lucky you, here I am.”

And Kieren was not resistant, to this day he doesn’t know how that happened, he just knows Amy has some kind of magic in her, a magic to bring people back to life.

So, Amy comes in, and the first thing she does, as opposed to running up to the counter and to Kieren, is to make the guy stand up and give her a hug that lasts for, he thinks, ever. He watches Amy nuzzling into the guy’s chest and there’s a feeling of betrayal in him, like _how could she_?

As she does approach Kieren, her face falls from “what a beautiful day to be here” to “Oh no Kieren” when she sees the look on his face. “What happened to you?” she asks with no preface.

Kieren just asks, “He’s with you?” nodding his head towards Simon, who’s currently doing the whole contemplative-look-out-of-the-window thing, so doesn’t notice.

Amy’s face fall further down, to a more dramatic expression of worry, and she says, “Oh no.”

And Kieren says, “He just ordered,” with a slight tone of urgency in it, like he needs Amy to tell him this guy is in fact an idiot.

“He wasn’t nice, wasn’t he?” she sighs.

“Not exactly.”

“So you weren’t nice.”

“Wha – I’m not the problem here, Amy.”

But Amy ignores him, talking to herself now. “This needs to be fixed.”

“Why?” Kieren asks, confused.

“Because you two need to get along.” Amy snaps into attention.

Amy was always a confusing person, but not to these levels.

“Yeah, I gathered that,” he replies with a touch too much cynicism than is appropriate to a talk with Amy. 

“Don’t be rude to me now,” she scolds him. And that’s why.

Kieren refrains from telling her that cynicism doesn’t equals rudeness and that’s his usual way of communication, and just says, “Why do we need to get along?”

Amy’s face lightens up. “Because you’re my BBFF, and he’s my knight in shining armor.”

This is going absolutely nowhere.

“First of all, what’s BBFF?”

“Best Barista Friend Forever, you silly.”

Kieren actually laughs at that. It’s…actually nice. He actually likes this. But that’s not the point. “Okay,” he says, and he’s still smiling, and Amy is smiling back, which is going to ruin his next question. “And second of all, he’s your _what_?”

“My knight in shining armor. Why aren’t you following? Did you not sleep well last night? Did your manager was an arse again? Tell me who did this, I’ll kill them.” 

“No, Amy, I’m fine, no need for murder. I – “ he quiets himself so other people won’t hear them, even though they’ve probably made other people’s day with this conversation so far, and he’s not sure why it’s so heavy on his tongue when he says: “He’s your Soul Mate?”

Maybe it’s because Amy deserves a Soul Mate, but definitely not this one. Maybe it’s because of the confusion he had with _him_ earlier. Maybe it doesn’t matter why.

Amy bursts out with a belly-laugh. “Who said anything about a Soul Mate? You know I don’t believe in this shit. Mine says, “Um, hi.” It could by anybody!” She throws her arms up, than points all around them at costumers. Kieren shushes her hurriedly, signals to her to let her arms down. He can’t have costumers be all up at his neck because of this.

“I think that’s the point,” he says, absentmindedly running his fingers over the scar of, ‘Maybe we should run’. “But anyway, you know he _is_ looking for his, right?”

Amy waves him off. “He believes in a lot of weird stuff. Just like you! You see, you _are_ getting along already.”

Kieren wants to shove his head in his palms and never look up again. “We are not. That – That doesn’t even make any sense.”

Amy rolls her eyes and pffts. Kieren, again, wants to face-palm. But then he notices the guy has stopped staring out the window, and is now looking at them with his lips quirked up in a weird, crooked, not-quite-a-smile way. “What shall I get you today?” he asks, pointedly not looking back at the guy. Whose name Amy didn’t even tell him. “And what’s his name, anyway?” 

“Simon,” she intones. And then: “And I think it’s Just Green Tea day.”

Just Green Tea days mean Not So Well days. Kieren, for the first time today, stops thinking about Simon, apparently, to examine Amy. She does look a bit greenish, actually. He’s been an idiot himself. “How are you?” he asks as he takes down a tea pot to make Amy her favourite green tea.

“Perfect, as always,” she tells him, like she always does when she’s a bit off. He knows there’s no need to worry too much, and that even miracles take time, but he does, sometimes; he spends his days painting her like it’s something that’ll help, like any embodiment of Amy will give her strength, like it’s a voodoo ritual. But he doesn’t press, knowing full well Amy doesn’t like talking too seriously about it. She appreciates the concern, but please, Kieren, I’m still alive.

“You can sit, I’ll bring it over.”

“That’ll be a perfect opportunity to amend your blooming relationship with Simon.”

Kieren rolls his eyes.

*  
When he brings the tea over, Amy and Simon are conversing in hushed tones, and don’t notice him until he lays the pot and glass in front of Amy. “There you go,” he says cheerily to her. And then, to Simon, much less cheerily: “Can I get you anything else?”

“No, thank you,” Simon says, and it’s like a whole different universe to how he sounded when he first talked to Kieren.

Kieren nods, and sends a small smile to Amy, and starts to walk away, when Amy grabs him by the elbow. “Sit with us,” she says.

“You know I can’t.”

“Fine, then stand here for a moment and pretend you’re taking a complicated order.”

Kieren looks back at the empty counter, and then at Amy, and then at Simon, who is looking at him like he actually wants Kieren to do that, for some weird reason. Maybe for Amy, that’ll make sense, probably. And then he complies.

“What?” he asks, and takes out his notepad and a pan.

“We were just talking. You should come to the poetry night tonight.”

“Poetry night?”

“You don’t know your work place hosts poetry nights?” Simon asks. He sounds amused, and not judging, which is completely out of character for him in Kieren’s mind.

“No, I don’t. I never work nights,” he answers him, too harshly, perhaps, and looks back at Amy. “Why?”

“Because. It’s fun! You’ll like it. And I know you have nothing else to do, because you don’t do anything without me.”

Kieren sighs. “Maybe.”

“No, definitely,” Amy argues.

“Can I bring Jem?”

“Am I your Mum?”

“Who’s Jem?”

“His sister.”

“Fine, then.”

“It’s settled.”

“Great.”

*

Jem refuses to come with him. She doesn’t like poetry nights, or his work place, or the way his manager, pearl, pushes him around, come on Kier, you know that, and why are you going, anyway? I thought spending time there when you’re not working is a waste.

“Amy convinced me.” Convinced is a strong word. “Please, Jem?”

“Oh.” She says. She met Amy a few times, when she really needed some free coffee and so came by. They...it’s not that they didn’t get along, it’s that Jem doesn’t get too well with anybody, in particular people she never talked too much to before, which is sort of a paradox and if Kieren weren’t her brother he wouldn’t have known how to talk to her. “No, I’m not coming, deal with your own mess, don’t drag me down with you.”

“I hate you.”

“You love me.”

*

So he goes there alone. It’s not really a problem, since he knows the place well, and Amy will be there, it’s just that...Roarton’s streets at night are not a good place to be at, not for Kieren, who’s reputation in this town is not of the best ones, and who has memories of both his time with Rick and his time without Rick at nearly every place he passes. And it’s different when the sun is out, things look different then, but when it’s too dark to see there is more than just the memory there. It’s not dangerous, it’s just unpleasant, most of the time, depends on people’s mood. 

He passes by Rick’s house, which stands empty, and has been like that for a long while now. Rick’s family had moved away even without selling the house shortly after Rick’s funeral, and he doesn’t know if it’s because Rick’s Mum couldn’t stand the town anymore, or because Rick’s Dad couldn’t stand Kieren. It’s for the best, either way. Things between him and Rick’s Dad could never have ended well, and Kieren, whose self image is not of the pompous kind, and who knows that in Bill Macy’s eyes he was a weakling, couldn’t see himself coming on top in any situation between them. 

Sometimes when he’s bitter he thinks that something good comes out of anything, and that if he were to survive himself but not Rick’s Dad that would have been sad.

He did both, though, didn’t he? Rick was the one who didn’t.

But it’s over now. Kieren had – in his own way, in the weird way this world lets you – moved on, and it’s over now.

He’s going to poetry night with Amy Dyer and a weird bloke named Simon, if you wanted any proof of that.

*

“I still don’t know what I’m doing here,” he tells Amy as people start to gather around. The coffee shop is vastly different at night, with a different type of costumers, a different type of background music, and even the lighting and the décor look strange to his eyes.

The people there are having wakened conversations and no one seems to be grumpy or uncoordinated, and Kieren himself feels estranged with his simple light brown hoody and black jeans. Some people with oversized glasses have complimented his boots, though, so maybe he’s not completely out of place.

“Living your life, making friends,” Amy replies. 

The air is buzzing and vibrating and cold in a different way than in the morning. It’s all very weird. There’s also an improvised stage and a microphone he didn’t know they owned.

“It feels off,” he says.

“You’ll like it eventually,” Amy promises, like she can promise something like that. Well, if anyone could it’s Amy. She’s dressed in a yellow dress with blue-ish purple flowers on it, and she has white plastic flowers in her growing hair. She fits right in, but then again, she fits right in to any place, even when she shouldn’t be fitting at all.

“Where is Simon, anyway?” Kieren asks, because Simon is nowhere to be seen, and wasn’t the point of this all to make them okay with each other? (Kieren wouldn’t go as far as to say friends.)

Amy looks around, then back at him. “He’ll be here in a moment.” Then her voice gets dreamy, and she sways on her heels. “He’s reading a poem tonight.”

Kieren stares at her. “He writes poetry?” It...it actually sits right, this one fact. This one tiny fact finally sits right with this unimaginably mysterious guy.

“No, he – Well, sometimes. But not the one he’s reading tonight.”

Kieren just nods. He doesn’t get this whole night at all.

Simon arrives about two minutes later, and Amy, again, pulls him into a giant hug. “You should try them out,” she tells Kieren at his apparently obvious staring. “They’re marvellous.”

He looks, startled, at Simon, who again, has this not-quite-smile on his face, and his eyes tell him, _Don’t worry_ , and Kieren for some reason relaxes.

Simon decides to shake his hand, then. He says, “Hello Kieren,” formal and serious, and Kieren just takes his hand, which is huge and wraps completely around his (and boy does this guy needs gloves), and says, “Hi.”

After that they pick a seat. 

Amy sits in between them, with one hand on each, like some sort of transferrer of affection, like she needs only to reach out to the both of them to connect between them, and everything else will just work out. Kieren is still not sure why Simon is so important to her, but he goes along, he has to. As long as Simon won’t be an idiot it’ll be just fine.

“Who even organizes these?” Kieren asks as the lights dim.

“Me,” Simon says unexpectedly. 

Kieren leans forward and turns to look at him, both eyebrows raised. “You?”

“Is it really that surprising?” Simon looks amused once again.

“Yes,” Kieren says, and leans backwards again.

“Look at you two.” Amy looks, pleased, between them, and taps her hand on his thigh twice. “Conversing.”

Kieren can see Simon rolling his eyes fondly from the corner of his. Maybe he’s not that bad after all, maybe he’s slightly less The Worst Human Being Ever and slightly more Just A Stranger.

“So how come I’ve never seen you before?” he asks Simon.

“He doesn’t like the morning, or the sun, or the world, in general,” Amy chimes in.

Simon doesn’t disagree, but he glares at her, and then for a mere second this glare is turned to Kieren before his face softens. It’s frankly frightening. “I’m here mostly when they happen.”

“I see.”

Pearl is now checking the microphone, and when she spots Kieren, she gives him a look, and Kieren gives her a questioning one back until she doesn’t look at him anymore.

“So shouldn’t you, like, make an introduction or something?” he continues.

Simon just nods.

Then they all wait.

*

When Simon’s on stage, everybody gets quite so suddenly Kieren feels like his ears lost something. The hum disappears to be replaced with Simon clearing his throat in front of the microphone, and then he looks around, until his eyes fall on Kieren, and the gaze is so intense Kieren can feel it, and he doesn’t know why Simon is doing that, but he keeps his eyes on him as he reads:

_“I know that I shall meet my fate_   
_Somewhere among the clouds above;”_

His voice is steady, calm, like he’s been doing this all of his life, and maybe he has been.

_“Those that I fight I do not hate,_   
_Those that I guard I do not love;”_

His voice is low and reverberating through Kieren’s body, like something in these words sends a thread from Simon to him, and now Kieren can’t let go.

_"My country is Kiltartan Cross,_   
_My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,_   
_No likely end could bring them loss_   
_Or leave them happier than before.”_

His voice trembles on the last sentence, like he means everything he says.

_“Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,_   
_Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,_   
_A lonely impulse of delight_   
_Drove to this tumult in the clouds;”_

And then he pauses, never blinks, just takes a breath, moistens his lips, focuses his gaze on Kieren even stronger than before, and reads:

_“I balanced all, brought all to mind,_   
_The years to come seemed waste of breath,_   
_A waste of breath the years behind_   
_In balance with this life, this death.”_

He lets the poem hang in the air, and everybody’s quiet, and Kieren thinks that sure, even if he wanted to make a noise he couldn’t, he can barely move his hands up to clap as everybody else does.

“An Irish Airman Foresees His Death, by W. B. Yeats. I am Simon Monroe, and this is Poetry Night number nine.”

Simon is no longer looking at Kieren, but Kieren is still looking at Simon. When he manages to tear his eyes away and look at Amy, she seems mesmerized and like she doesn’t even care who Simon chose to direct his gaze towards. Kieren says, “I’m going to the bathroom,” and doesn’t wait for Amy to react, because something is happening in his body, and he needs to wash his face, and he needs to breathe alone, and he needs to calm down. It was just a goddamn poem read by, yes, a goddamn good narrator, but still.

He locks the bathroom door behind him and takes off his sweater, folds his sleeves up, because he feels too hot. He turns on the tap and lets it run for a bit before sticking his palms together underneath it and washes his face. He’s – 

At first he thinks these are Rick’s words glowing again. But it’s the wrong place, and the wrong length, and the wrong words. It’s – 

_Oh._ Kieren thinks. _Oh?_

*

“Did you like it?” Simon asks in a hushed voice as Kieren sits back down. He looks like he actually cares about the answer. This is tenfold levels of fucked up, Kieren thinks, and he’s still not breathing properly.

“Of course he liked it,” Amy says to Simon, nearly ignoring Kieren, but you are never ignored by Amy Dyer. “You’ve shaken him to the core.” Kieren has a feeling she’s trying to talk to Simon about herself. Simon looks away from Kieren to kiss the top of her head.

“Yeah, yeah,” Kieren answers. His legs are jittery. Simon shifts his eyes back to him, and Kieren can see that he knows something is wrong, but he keeps his posture right. “Can I talk to you? Outside?” He asks Simon. Amy is nearly beaming by the implications of Simon and Kieren actually talking to each other. She trusts Kieren too much. Kieren needs to tell her. But Kieren needs to talk to Simon.

Simon sends a glance to the stage, where a blonde girl with make-up made black circles around her eyes and a piercing in her nose is reading something Kieren is not listening to, but then nods. He lays a hand on Amy’s shoulder as they both get up, and Amy sends him a thumbs up as he looks behind his shoulder.

Outside, in the back alley leading to the bins, Kieren says: “What the fuck?”

Simon says: “What happened?” And he’s approaching Kieren carefully, and now Kieren thinks about Simon touching him, thinks about their hand shake, and he’s – he’s confused, he’s so lost.

Kieren runs a hand through his hair, a hand full of Simon’s words on it. He says: “I balanced all brought all to mind.”

“What about it?” Simon asks. He’s not nearly as confused as he should be.

“ _It’s on me_ ,” Kieren cries out, tries to keep his voice down, but failing miserably.

“Show me,” Simon says, but Kieren ignores him.

“How is that possible?” He shrieks.

“Show me, please.” Simon is so close to him now he can feel his body heat. Simon is looking at him intensely again. Simon is _asking_ , begging, even. And Kieren, without thinking, just pulls his sleeve up in one go. He holds his hand out for Simon to see the glowing words, but isn’t prepared for Simon grabbing his arm and examining it with such scrutiny. He swallows as Simon runs his fingers on Rick’s scar, but doesn’t pull the hand away, paralyzed. Simon’s words are bright even in the alley’s darkness. Simon’s eyes are glimmering when he looks at them.

“It’s not possible,” he says, now that Simon knows the reason why.

“But it must be,” is Simon’s reply. He’s now looking straight into Kieren’s eyes. They are _so close_ to each other that Kieren feels like he’s about to have a panic attack. Simon, on the other hand, looks like he’s about to throw a party.

“There’s no one for me.” His voice is getting weaker and weaker.

“There’s me.”

In a huff, Kieren pulls his hand back, and takes a step away from Simon. “You know, you’re leading her on. Amy. She likes you. You know that.”

“She knows I’m not her Soul Mate,” Simon says calmly. He doesn’t add: You are, because that would be even more ridiculous than this already ridiculous situation.

“She doesn’t believe in that,” Kieren answers vehemently.

Suddenly Simon’s hands are on his shoulders, and Simon is saying his name, which is the only thing that Kieren can register. Simon is also telling him to breathe, which is stupid, because how can he, but Simon is bending his knees to look at him, and Kieren looks up, and Kieren is obeying without thinking about it, forcing himself to steady his breath, long ins and outs, slowly, slowly, just like that, alright.

“Here we go,” Simon says, and lets him go, and Kieren wants to tell him not to, suddenly, it’s all so sudden, he’s not sure what he’s feeling, just that Simon’s hands, Simon’s eyes, are comforting. “What shall I do?” Simon asks. “Tell me.” He’s not authoritative, like he was on the stage, not anymore. Simon needs to stop _asking_ because Kieren can’t refuse him like that.

“Tell her.” He’s still calming down, he doesn’t have the air in him for more than that.

“That what?”

“That – “

Kieren doesn’t know _what_. That Simon does believe in that, that he doesn’t love her the same way she wants him to, that – 

“Oi, Walker!”

Kieren turns around immediately, on an instinct. He knows that voice, knows not to ignore it. And sure enough, Gary Kendal is standing at the entry to the alley, flicking a cigarette to the ground. Gary is the town’s bully, would have bullied Kieren much earlier if Rick weren’t there to not allow it, to not let anyone touch Kieren. He hates Kieren with the same passion of Bill Macy, but is much less calculated about it, doesn’t care where or how he starts the fight. Sometimes, it’s more frightening than the thoughts about Bill Macy.

“Not now, Gary.” He spits out. God, please, not now.

“Whatcha got ya self there?” Gary’s tone is so vicious that Kieren wants to throw up. And then there’s Simon, standing beside him now, almost shadowing him with his body. Kieren doesn’t look at him. He tells Gary: “Get fucked. Not now.”

“Why?” Gary steps closer, into the faint light on the street lamps, but Kieren can still see only the shape of him. “Is that a lover boy you got there?”

Simon actually growls, and now he’s in front of Kieren, and Kieren wants to shove him back, because this isn’t his problem, but he won’t manage that, and he can’t take care of Simon and Gary both at the same time.

In, out, in, out. “I said, get fucked.”

Gary steps so close that Kieren can see him when he says: “I don’t take orders from faggots,” and flicks Kieren’s cheek with his fingers.

That was, evidently, a mistake. Simon has him in a choke hold in a split second, and Gary is making choking noises so Kieren knows it’s real and dangerous, but he doesn’t move a finger. He stares at the both of them, and the both of them stare back at him, one in horror, and the other with purpose and like he’s waiting for an order.

Gary struggles, but Simon is strong, and he can’t get out. Kieren feels the calm and the storm all at once, doesn’t know where the tide is taking him, if it’s receding or rising.

Then Amy’s voice hits his ears. “What is up with you – oh, hiya Gary,” She says as she steps into the circle. She has a truly disheartening expression on her face. Sometimes she’s absolutely scary, sometimes she’s absolutely not the gentlest person alive. Kieren takes that in, takes everything in, the way Gary makes a move towards her as she asks: “How are we today?”

She’s seen Gary a few times with Kieren, and probably a few times on her own, none of them were nice times. He assumes she wanted him in this position as much as he did.

Gary is getting red, soon he’ll be getting purple, he can even get dead, Kieren truly believes Simon will do that, Kieren truly believes Amy will let him, the way she’s standing, like a creature of divine prowess. Kieren truly believes this world will be better off, but Kieren does not truly believe in murder. Kieren chokes himself on the words. “Let him go.” And when Simon still doesn’t: “Simon. Let him go.”

When Simon does, Gary coughs out: “Nutters,” and runs along, probably to his jeep. Kieren doesn’t stick around to see what’s going to happen as well. He starts running fast. He runs and he can’t breathe and he doesn’t stop until he’s a couple of blocks away, leaning forwards, heaving with his hands on his knees, light headed, and the world is spinning around him. 

Everything is so fast; moving so fast, happening so fast. He needs one moment to just not pass. He needs something to hold on to. He needs – 

“Kieren,” that’s Simon, laying a hand on his back, heaving because he just ran himself to catch Kieren up, and Kieren has no idea what he’s doing, except he has every idea what he’s doing, when he turns around, grabs Simon’s face, and crushes their lips together.

Simon just stands there, just for a moment, and then he’s kissing Kieren back, grabbing his face too, and the world slows down.

**Two months later:**

After she’d seen him kissing Simon, Amy hasn’t come visiting for a couple of weeks. It wasn’t unusual of her, but what was unusual was Simon consistent visiting, and Kieren knew that both of them had the same reason for doing that.

Simon would come, and he would stand in front of the counter creating a line until Kieren would give up and say to him: “We’ll talk when I’m on my break.”

He would tell Kieren he’s searching for Amy, but he can’t find her. He would tell Kieren everything’s alright, and that Amy will understand. He would hug Kieren, and Kieren would bury his face in his chest, and understand Amy’s talk about his hugs. Simon would not stay after that, and Kieren will meet him after the shift, and they would do practically nothing, or the same thing they so on Kieren’s break, or –

Or Simon would let Kieren paint him. When he learned Kieren paints, that was the first thing he asked: “Would you paint me?”

And Kieren didn’t have enough ways to say yes.

He likes getting to know people through painting them, he likes the way it makes him memorize them, he likes the way that afterwards, he doesn’t need to look at them and he can just imagine them in any way he wants in clarity. So yes, yes, Simon, I would.

Simon’s paintings were not as colourful as Amy’s, or as bright as Jem’s, or as warm as Rick’s and Kieren’s family. But they were not less full of Kieren’s emotions. They were messy, at first, imprecise, and Kieren’s struggled with the shades. Then they were as fogy as Turner’s England. Then they got their sharp lines and dark, cold colours they have stayed with since. And Simon would look at them with admiration in his eyes, and Kieren would want to hear his poems, but would refrain from asking to, fearing it’ll make Simon not be as content as he was while just sitting with Kieren.

And then, one day, Amy came in. She approached the counter, behind it stood a stunned Kieren, and said, “Don’t mention it,” and then: “I missed you,” and then: “Now get me a Triple Caramel Frappuccino.”

And so it was.

He doesn’t know what happened, just that a few days later, she told Simon about the same thing, minus the Triple Caramel Frapuccino. But he doesn’t ask, as Amy says not to talk about it, so he’ll never know. Slowly she smiled at them the same smiles, slowly she was just as genuinely happy about them as she was before, slowly it all…got okay. Better. Amy was his BBFF again (“I’ve never stopped being your BBFF, it says forever in the acronym, stupid!”), and Simon was once again her knight in shining armor (“I’m still getting your hugs, now, aren’t I?”), just…a different type. And Kieren was impossibly thankful to Amy, the beautiful genius that she is, for being here again. He wanted to tell her it wasn’t meant to be like that, and he’s sorry, but what does he know, maybe it was, and he’s not allowed to talk about it anyway, so might as well shut up.

He also doesn’t know what happened between her and Philip Wilson, who a week later was hanging on her arm as she came in. Philip was a weird boy, turned from a useless nobody to the boy who’ll do everything to get the front seat, and Kieren is not sure what he did to get Amy to like him, but it’s apparent he did something good, the huge kind of good, so Kieren minds his own business.

Currently, his own business is to teach Simon to steam milk. Pearl had left him alone to watch after the place, and so Simon got behind the counter, and things just went downhill from there.

“You’re burning it.”

“It needs to be hot.”

“It’s already hot.”

“No, it’s not. Here, feel it.”

“Yep, you’re burning it.”

“I think it’s good.”

“Let’s start over.”

**Author's Note:**

> i have a [tumblr](http://asexualizing.tumblr.com) if you want!


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